


The Hollow Men

by sabinelagrande



Category: Firefly
Genre: Community: dooooooom, Crossgen, F/M, Mental Illness, poemfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-22
Updated: 2006-09-22
Packaged: 2017-10-04 11:12:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the way the world ends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hollow Men

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://community.livejournal.com/dooooooom/profile)[**dooooooom**](http://community.livejournal.com/dooooooom/). Italics and River's song all taken from "The Hollow Men" by TS Eliot, and purposefully used out of order.

_Between the motion_

 

"Here we go round the prickly pear, prickly pear, prickly pear." River's soft singing drifts down into the cargo bay. "Here we go round the prickly pear at five o'clock in the morning."

All manner of strange things go along with living with a girl like River. Like late-night singing, or catwalks as nap zones, or all manner of wacky fun.

But today, it's noises straight out of cheap, unlicensed Cortex feeds. Wet, slick noises, almost gurgling sounds. Removed from their context, they sound so alien, almost mechanical. He's heard Serenity make noises like that more than once.

He's pretty sure he never heard Serenity moan though.

Wash doesn't want to know what's going on, even though he's pretty sure he already does. He really, really doesn't. But, he knows too well, flesh being stabbed makes noises like that too.

 

_And the act_

 

"Tama de," Wash swears under his breath. He can feel himself gaping, but he can't stop it.

"Can feel Kaylee doing it," she tells him. "Can feel Serenity. Can feel everything. Sometimes it's beautiful."

He slaps a hand over his eyes- better late than never, he thinks. "You should," he swallows hard, his throat suddenly dry, "you should go on back to your room to do that."

"No," she says, and it comes out as a breathy moan.

 

_Between the emotion_

 

Is there a place worse than the Special Hell? Maybe they'll lift it up and put him under it.

He's got this image of her burned into the backs of his eyelids, so that he can't keep them shut without seeing it.

A mad creeping part of his brain is telling him that she's not so young, that she doesn't seem to have a problem with it. He's trying to shut it out, because there're at least six people who're going to have a real big problem with it.

She grabs his wrist, pulling his hand away from his eyes. Treacherous, they open. River is laid out in front of him, completely bare; and she's not letting go of his arm no matter how much he struggles.

She pulls him down to the cold grating.

 

_And the response_

 

He keeps thinking- he could move, he should move. He shouldn't lay here- he isn't supposed to lay here. This has gone far enough. Wash shouldn't be letting her kiss him, or touch him, or undress him. She yanks down his pants swiftly, popping the button off his fly. His erection springs free, and he's suddenly very deeply ashamed.

Anyone could walk by at any moment- and even if they couldn't, this would still be so wrong. He fights her off and tries to get up, but she pushes him back down again, knocking the breath out of him and laying him out flat.

 

_Between the desire_

 

Then she straddles him, pushing herself down hard on his cock. She lets out a loud, keening cry when she does it; he's trying not to hear. Trying to be some place else, trying to think of Zoe or stars or anything good that's not this.

River rides him fast and hard, her mouth gaping open, eyes vacant like she's not even there.

 

_And the spasm_

 

Wash has his eyes clamped tightly shut. If he's really going through this, he doesn't want to see it. He can hear some kind of noise, like footsteps coming, thinks he hears a voice, but he ignores it. It isn't a savior- there can't be a savior- so what does it matter?

Despite everything, he starts coming. Then he's suddenly cold and exposed, and he doesn't understand why immediately. His semen spurts up onto his stomach, and he realizes it's because she's gone. He doesn't understand, but then when did he start understanding any of this?

 

_Falls the shadow_

 

He opens his eyes, thinking it's finally safe, and stares right up into the face of his captain.

 

_For Thine is the Kingdom_

 

His left eye is purpling from Mal's fist, his right eye from Simon's. He's fairly certain the pain in his ribs came from Jayne's boot. In his mind, he has deserved every one of them.

Book- the only person who seems to understand- brings him food or comes to sit with him every so often. They don't talk, but Wash thinks he'd go completely mad without someone there, at least some of the time.

He can't decide if it's him or them keeping him sequestered. He feels like what he's done is all over him; he has to keep reminding himself that it wasn't his fault, but he can't admit it yet. What he did- if he did anything or not- is too horrible, too far outside of the realm of consideration to be shifted.

If he can just get to Zoe, if he can just make her understand, maybe it isn't really the end.

 

_This is the way the world ends_

 

River lays her head across Kaylee's lap.

"Not his fault," she says, as Kaylee strokes her hair. Kaylee purses her lips, not wanting to get involved, just keeps playing at the mess of hair across her thighs.

"All her fault," River tells her, turning and looking into her eyes. "If they only knew."

 

_This is the way the world ends_

 

"You've got to believe me," he tells her, swallowing hard on a dry throat. "Bao bei, the day I do anything to hurt you is the day I die."

Zoe's face is completely blank. It's a mask- the same mask she uses when she's meeting a contact for the first time, the same mask she wore when she came to save him from Niska, the same mask he always imagined she wore in Serenity Valley. It tells him absolutely nothing, and in that moment, he is lost.

Then Zoe wraps her arms around him and holds him close.

 

_This is the way the world ends_

 

Mal is walking Simon across the room by his throat. He slams the doctor into the wall and hisses something at him.

Wash can barely see and can't hear at all, as he's trying not to be seen himself. He only came for a wrench, not a fight.

They glare at each other for a few minutes, then Mal abruptly drops Simon and stalks out. Wash tries to flatten himself as Mal comes by, but it's pointless.

"What in the hell are you doin' out here?" Mal says in passing, lips in an unnaturally tight smile. "You've got a ship to fly."

 

_Not with a bang, but a whimper_

 

Kaylee can't even say anything; she's crying into Inara's shoulder. Simon takes one last look at Serenity, the place he has been starting to regard as his home.

River doesn't even look concerned. The thought crosses Simon's mind that maybe she doesn't know she's leaving.

"Won't leave," she says, not looking at him. "Can't leave. Too much tied to this place. Doesn't know what she's done." River looks hard at him, and suddenly she's much older, much graver. "Don't tell her when she wakes up."

She takes Simon's hand and walks off into the dusty world.

 

_Life is very long._


End file.
